Harold and Maude

Rich teenage suicide freak seeks ageing, train carriage-dwelling concentration camp survivor for fun and frolics. Must like Cat Stevens. ‘I suppose you think that’s funny!’ A favourite, even ‘life-changing’ film for countless people, despite us not personally going a bundle on it. It’s pleasant enough, you understand, but, well, as far as we’re concerned, it’s incidental, not integral, if you know what we mean. Frisco looks great, The Stevens sounds great, and the acting’s top drawer (Vivian Pickles as Harry’s uber-WASP mum being the pick of the bunch, natch) but all that folksy homespun philosophy leaves us cold – the field of daisies bit and likewise. Hope that doesn’t make us sound like cynical old buffers from some Connaught Club backroom, but there you go. And we keep getting distracted by Bud Cort’s terrifyingly youthful appearance, like a figure from the Playmobil ‘moneyed depressives’ range. It’s the best thing Hal Ashby’s directed for sure (and we’re most certainly including Being There) but writer Colin Higgins also wrote – synchronicity ahoy! – Silver Streak, if you please. Now *there’s* a life-changing film.